Comments on: ebooks and the iPhone

By: Georghe

Georghe — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:42:52 +0000

hi bill! collaborative filtering
will eventually lower the cost of
“marketing” to next-to-nothing, so
there will be plenty of potential
to make money off iphone e-books.

By: Lara

Lara — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:47:33 +0000

You already can read ebooks on your iphone. Books.app is a new, basic eBook reader for the iPhone that requires books to be transferred to the device via the iPHUC tool. The application reads HTML and text files stored in a media/eBooks folder, and is smart enough to enter subdirectories, if, for instance, you’ve broken a book down by chapters.

I think it’s very important to be able to read ebooks on many different types of digital devices. And there are so many cool things that you can do with ebooks. Have you seen the Moxyland ebook? It’s the first ebook in the world with an embedded soundtrack – a subzero cool reading experience.

By: David Johnson

David Johnson — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:24:04 +0000

30 Sept 2008 – Bill, Peter & Crew
I’m a UK journalist writing a piece about how the eBooks market works,
and in view of the mess the music industry made of converting to the digital market I’m interested in knowing what your concerns are for eBooks. Any chance, please, of some swift responses to the following issues, for publication?

1 – What will bring down the prices of eBooks that currently cost more than the online discount price?

2 – What would you say was a fair price for the ebook version of a printed book that sells for $15?

3 – Do you think the lessons over downloads learnt by the music industry (which is finally starting to abandon DRM) are being absorbed by book publishers and retailers, or not?

Many thanks: email johnson1709 [@] fastmail.fm

By: bowerbird

bowerbird — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 04:06:40 +0000

hi bill! collaborative filtering
will eventually lower the cost of
“marketing” to next-to-nothing, so
there will be plenty of potential
to make money off iphone e-books.

-bowerbird

By: jcohen

jcohen — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:26:59 +0000

fine analysis except one key obstacle:

Like watching TV on a 2 inch screen, would you want to read small chunks of a page and have to constantly shift the view to the end of the sentence or next paragraph?

By: Stephen Sottong

Stephen Sottong — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:17:48 +0000

Your arguments agree with those I published in “American Libraries” May issue. A bit of evidence to back your article: in years past, the largest ebook seller was Palm. There too, once a person owned a Palm PDA or phone, it made some sense to add functionality to it by buying books for the device. If ebooks ever take off, it will be on multi-purpose devices and not on dedicated readers like the Kindle.

By: iphone games music

iphone games music — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:27:52 +0000

Nice blog, i have added it to my favourites, greetings

By: Morgan Mandel

Morgan Mandel — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:59:40 +0000

I’d love to be able to order ebooks on my Iphone. [...various advertising snipped...]

Iphones are very popular and new uses are being created for them almost every day. I use mine for e-mail, photos, going to websites and so many more things than just as a phone.

Morgan Mandel
http://www.morganmandel.com

By: Jim Lichtenberg

Jim Lichtenberg — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:41:30 +0000

Bravo, Bill. This is the first truly intelligent post about “e-book” reading and devices that I have seen so far.

Re Joe’s question, what has been amazing so far about the iPod/iPhone, is that the ease and the fun has created demand without a whole lot else having to be done.

We’ll see!

By: Bill Janssen

Bill Janssen — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 05:02:51 +0000

I’m taking the numbers from Ms. Genoese’s post — she has on the order of $.40 / book budgeted for marketing (if I’m reading her correctly). I guessed a 5X increase for a self-publisher — may be fatally low.